Insomnium is a Finnish melodic death metal band with humble beginnings back in 1997. Markus Hirvonen (drums), Ville Friman (guitars/clean vocals) and Niilo Sevänen (bass/harsh vocals) the original members were inspired by bands such as their legendary countrymen Amorphis and Sentenced, early Paradise Lost or Swedish melo death pioneers. Markus Vanhala (guitar) joined in 2011. In 2019, Jani Liimatainen (ex-Sonata Arctica) who had already been a live guitarist became a full-time member. Insomnium sound portrays darkness, sorrow, loss, pain, and nature via melodic death metal with a touch of doom and progressive metal.
After the acclaimed Shadows of the Dying Sun (2014) and Winter’s Gate (2016), the 8th studio album, Heart Like a Grave consists of 10 songs and over an hour of Finnish melancholy. According to the band, the album "draws inspiration from some of the bleakest tales, lyrics and poems of the north". The album opens with a short melancholic and mid tempo song, "Wail of the North" which builds up from the keyboard alone to an explosion of all instruments. Then half way through its 3 minutes, the vocals come in. It’s a short single and an intro song hybrid. In any case it leads the way to a fast tempo melodeath hymn and first single “Valediction”. This great song relies on clean vocals for all verses but also death metal vocals for the pre-chorus, catchy chorus and bridge. This is actually the song with most clean vocals on this album. There are other moments of melodeath Gothenburg-style such as the In Flames-ish "Neverlast" or the super melodic and groovy “Mute Is My Sorrow” and the headbanger "The Offering" (featuring a great lead guitar).
Throughout the record Insomnium use some elements that make the album dynamic and interesting: Keyboards, acoustic guitars (actually five songs start with acoustic arpeggios) and clean vocals. Those are frequent resources that the band uses but never overdoing it. The title track features all of those and shows the other side of the album: the mid tempo doomy melancholic Insomnium. Acoustic guitars, a chorus alternating clean and growling vocals , whispering singing and melodic guitar phrasing set the tone of this dark and somber beauty of a song. With just over 7 min Vanhala, who wrote it, still had time to pick up the speed for the final bridge before come full circle to the acoustic guitars closing. "And Bells They Toll" and "Twilight Trails" (which shows a bit of an Enslaved vibe) follow the same line. But the 9-min "Pale Morning Star" shows the more progressive side of the band and kind of mix the two album directions in one song. It starts melancholic, it picks a up speed but then it goes doomy again in the middle section. This song has the best guitar solo of the album and great basslines (even if a bit low in the mix). Talking about prog, the album closes with a 7-min instrumental that, while not adding much, is a nice final touch.
All of that is very positive, there are however a couple of problems with Heart Like a Grave. First, it's a bit too long, Insomnium could've cut two songs out to stay in the 8 tracks and 50-ish min mark. For example, I'd prefer the album to kick-off with the powerful riff of "Valediction". Second, I was not impressed with their originality, nothing really stood out as a step forward. Finally, at times, passages sound too much like Amon Amarth mid-tempo songs e.g. "Under the Northern Star". And that bothered me a bit. With all that said, it's a great album which I played on repeat for days.
While Heart Like a Grave does not stack up to Insomnium 2016's masterpiece Winter’s Gate, it does provide a diverse and versatile journey truthful to their trademark sound. The distinct songs bounce between melodeath and melancholic doom influences with a hint of prog metal. All in all, it's a solid addition to Insomnium's catalog and brings some interesting possibilities for their live setlist.
SCORE: 80/100
DR: 9
Genre: Death Metal
Released by Century Media Records on October 4th, 2019
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